Frankenmuth is a small Michigan based insurer. Also does business in Ohio. Been with them forever.
Long story short …. Rented car totaled while waiting for a red light to change in Florida 15 years ago. “No-fault” state. When the steeply padded bill from Budget arrived a few weeks later insurer settled with them fully. To this day I avoid buying expensive rental insurance.

Don't look now but a utilities fund I follow (UTG) is up 6.5% over the last 3 weeks. Hopefully Giroux is on to something.

https://www.morningstar.com/financial-advice/what-know-about-federal-thrift-savings-plan-tsp-g-fund
Background https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/thread/45/federal-tsp-fund-sv

The following is from an email from Schwab:
"The trade settlement period will be shortened to one day beginning May 28, 2024.
Starting on May 28, 2024, the settlement period for most securities traded on U.S. exchanges or over the counter will shorten from two business days (T+2) to one business day (T+1). For most investors, this event may have little or no impact. However, there are a few key things to know.
New shortened settlement period reduces risk.
The T+1 settlement period may benefit investors like you by reducing credit and liquidity risks present between the trade date and the settlement date. This is an industry-wide change for most security transactions and types, such as stocks, bonds, municipal securities, exchange-traded products, secondary market CDs, unit investment trusts, and certain mutual funds and limited partnerships that trade on U.S. exchange or over the counter. There will be no change to the settlement period for treasuries, options, or futures as they already use the T+1 settlement period.
Cost basis Implications
After T+1 goes into effect, any changes to your cost basis method will have to be made within one business day of the trade, not two.
Margin interest implications
If you place a trade in a margin account and then need to sell money market funds (“MMFs”) to cover your purchase, the funds will need to be available prior to or on the same day as the trade settlement to avoid being charged margin interest. For trades placed for bonds, equities and other securities, the MMFs will need to be sold by 4 p.m. ET the same day the purchase trade is placed.
To avoid accruing margin interest:
• MMFs will need to be sold by 4 p.m. ET to cover trading in the after-hours market that same day.
• MMFs will need to be sold by 4 p.m. ET to cover purchases of Fixed Income securities that can be traded until 5 p.m. ET the same day.
Your next steps.
The new settlement period will automatically apply to any new trades executed on or after May 28, 2024. You may need to pay closer attention to how the shorter settlement time could affect your investment, trading, or tax decisions."
[bold added]

Thanks, @Mona.
I am not looking for the lowest premium provider. I already have a 20% lower quote from a different company than my current insurer (increased YOY premium by >50%) but my current insurer has marginally better customer satisfaction score and so, I am still shopping for an equivalent or better customer satisfaction score and potentially lower premium than my current one. I am hoping never to make a claim but when I have to, it has to be available with least amount of friction. I do not want to get into an agreement just looking at my rights and thinking I can always assert my rights or sue to compel performance.

This is what I read @Old_Joe. It was an order I've had waiting since Feb, actually. I've owned the stock before, but got out prematurely as it kept rising, mistake, and have been waiting to get back in. My guess is their company earnings are hedging on rate cuts that may not happen now until 2024. Just like other builder and REIT stocks. edit, fwiw, my order kicked in at 163.1. A little lower than the close.

Builders FirstSource (BLDR) saw the biggest drop on the S&P 500, down 18%, after the building product supplier issued a downbeat second-quarter sales outlook amid headwinds in the multi-family market. The company recorded mixed results year over year in the preceding three-month period.

RBC Cuts Price Target on Builders FirstSource to $206 From $211

Merrill? 4.71%, but that's non-sweep and requires a $100K min.

I think this is in reference to their

Preferred Deposit account. If so, this is only an initial investment min, hence one would conceivably put in $100K then take them out leaving, say, $1 and then add/withdraw funds as needed - manually, as this is indeed a non-sweep account. I believe they also have several sweep accounts paying 5.17% atm, but these require a greater commitment shown here.

The Preferred Deposit disclosure does not seem to require maintaining any particular balance. However, minimum additional deposits must be at least $1K and withdrawals must be in whole dollars. In addition, only whole dollars of interest are automatically deposited. The remaining cents go into your core ("Primary") account.
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Publish/Content/application/pdf/GWMOL/PreferredDepositDisclosure-446700PM.pdf
The same is true of MMFs that accept only whole dollar amounts (that's based on experience). The MMFs that have this restriction are those that settle same-day. See here:
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/Mutualfunds/MFBDCashManagement.aspx
The "greater commitment" is paying Merrill to manage your money. Footnote (1):

[Your account must be enrolled in] (1) the Merrill Lynch Investment Advisory Program, (2) the Merrill Lynch Strategic Portfolio Advisor Service; (3) the Merrill Lynch Managed Account Service; (4) the BlackRock Private Investors Service; (5) the Merrill Guided Investing Program; (6) the Merrill Guided Investing with Advisor Program; [or] (7) the Merrill Edge Advisory Account program.

If you're going to make that sort of commitment, then you might as well pay Vanguard 0.30% for its hybrid advisory service - that will get you phone call service even if you're not calling about a transaction. And you won't have to pay extra for it. (Vanguard's announcements including restricting phone service to calls about trades and adding a $25 charge.)

Incidentally, I was also told that one can trade against their mm fund balance at Merrill - the same way one can do, say, at Schwab - can anyone confirm this?)

Was Schwab a guess or have you done this? Fidelity does this automatically, though I'm not clear on their order of precedence if one has multiple MMFs in the same account.
If Merrill does offer this, it is not automatic. My account shows an available trading balance of essentially zero, even though I have several dollars in a MMF. A test trade for a share of stock costing less than my MMF balance returns:
"This order entered exceeds the maximum trade value for this account."
Here's an older (2016) disclosure that suggests automatic withdrawals may be possible.

In addition to your Primary Money Account, you may be able to choose additional cash sweep options or “manual alternatives” that provide automatic withdrawal/redemption only. Depending on your account type, manual alternatives may include bank deposit programs, money market mutual funds or the Insured Savings Account (ISA®),1 a limited transaction deposit program.

Note that I've not found any newer disclosure with this info, and the latest (2024) sweep program guide has no mention of this feature.
https://olui2.fs.ml.com/publish/content/application/pdf/GWMOL/Sweep-Program.pdf
Finally, you may find this thread on MyMoneyBlog helpful:
https://www.mymoneyblog.com/merrill-edge-brokerage-cash-sweep-options.html

But it also used to be that a Private Client customer at Fidelity was assigned a specific rep. No more at either brokerage.

Fidelity still assigns you an individual Premier Services Advisor.
@msf did they also used to assign another kind of "specific rep" as well?

As a matter of fact, they've assigned a Private Access Account Executive, a Private Client Group Account Executive (same person, different title), a Senior Account Executive (same person), an Account Executive (same person), and a Financial Consultant (same person).
Then the musical chairs began. No title changes, but in the span of three years, three different "Financial Consultants". Then a year later, when the last one left Fidelity, I was not assigned any specific rep, whatever title you wish to give to them.

@msf I think you might want to consider calling Fido and just asking for one.
In my case, I was offered an individual PSA several times, but declined because I thought it might lead to more marketing, to which I am quite averse. Finally, something made me try, so I just let them know and was promptly assigned one.

Merrill? 4.71%, but that's non-sweep and requires a $100K min.

I think this is in reference to their Preferred Deposit account. If so, this is only an initial investment min, hence one would conceivably put in $100K then take them out leaving, say, $1 and then add/withdraw funds as needed - manually, as this is indeed a non-sweep account. I believe they also have several sweep accounts paying 5.17% atm, but these require a greater commitment shown here.
(To be clear, I've never had a Merrill account before but have recently decided to try them out and am in the process of transferring some funds over. The above information has been confirmed with a phone rep, but I have not had a chance to verify it myself.
Btw, so far I have found their customer service to be surprisingly helpful and competent, though I have only had minor issues to address until now. One odd thing I've encountered with Merrill is that they do not allow you to ACAT in-kind any money market funds - even those that Merrill itself offers - which is a bit of a nuisance, iyam.
Incidentally, I was also told that one can trade against their mm fund balance at Merrill - the same way one can do, say, at Schwab - can anyone confirm this?)

@hank, check out DYNF, an active multi factor (or factor rotation) 5 yr old ETF from Blackrock. The ETF could not pay to get AUM until this year. Then all of a sudden 95% of the inflows came in 2024, with $4.5B coming on 2 days. Now, it has more than $7.5B in AUM. Seems like a change in marketing strategy. The ETF performance pre 2023 was mediocre but it is doing well 2023 and YTD.

@Old_Joe. Thanks for the note. I got a little carried away responding to @Crash. You had it right all along. Also, I did correct an earlier reference to the Shuttle having 5 main engines. After checking, it had only 3.
@BaluBalu - I like your idea of placing a wager on Boeing. But appears you got tripped up by the 787 news. The FAA investigation is new I guess. But there’s been allegations on that matter swirling for weeks. So perhaps this won’t move the stock much.
However - think I’ll keep my small wagers confined to MLB games. :)

Until the FDIC stops protecting uninsured depositors, this change is largely form without substance.
A few sentences from a NYTimes subscriber-only opinion piece (May 1, 2024)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/opinion/fdic-insurance-banks.html

When Banks Fail, Why Do We Keep Bailing Out Uninsured Depositors?
[Michael] Ohlrogge, an associate professor at New York University Law School, argues that when banks fail, the F.D.I.C. is not resolving them in the manner that is least costly to its Deposit Insurance Fund.
...
It stands to reason that the cheapest way to resolve a bank failure in many cases — maybe most cases — would be to tell those uninsured depositors that their money is gone: “Sorry. See ya, Wouldn’t wanna be ya.”
But in a vast majority of bank failures, the F.D.I.C. approves a resolution in which the uninsured depositors don’t lose a penny [at typically higher cost].
...
Ohlrogge speculates that the F.D.I.C. is experiencing “mission creep,” taking on a responsibility for uninsured depositors that it was never assigned.

This is a copywrited, paywalled piece. I'm not going to reproduce more here. Ohlrogge's paper, Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured? (Nov 15, 2023) is freely available and covers the material in more detail.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4624095

I like to think that people here understand fair-use the way we understand that we are not offering investment advice; but I always enjoy reading your stuff because you do it so well. Thank you.

Correct me if wrong. But unlike SpaceX which uses its own in-house rockets, Boeing will launch its Starliner on an Atlas 5 booster whose first stage is Russian made! The linked Wikipedia article pertains only to the Atlas 5 booster.
Wikipedia

But the Shuttles used multiple, smaller rockets, eh?
Umm … I wouldn’t put it that way. Very different vehicles. Probably the 5-engine first stage of the Saturn V had more thrust than the 3 onboard shuttle engines working alone. But the Saturn didn’t have the 2 solid rockets strapped to it. And the first stage of the Saturn dropped off into the ocean after only a couple minutes, while the shuttle’s engines propelled it all the way into earth orbit.
The Saturn’s first stage had 5 engines. And the complete Saturn “stack” was a 3-stage monster (3 rockets stacked on top of one another vertically). Much different from how the shuttle operated.
The space shuttle had awesome power. Leaped off the pad. The 2 strapped-on solid boosters really jacked it off the bad. Solid fueled. Not dissimilar to sitting on a keg of dynamite and lighting it. Problem is - you can’t throttle them back or shut them off once they are lit like you can a liquid fueled engine (like the shuttle’s main engines). That makes them inherently more dangerous for use on crewed flights.
The space shuttle had 3 gigantic liquid fueled engines. Those returned to earth with the shuttle at mission’s end (but were not used in the landing process) Not only could they be throttled up or down, but they could be gimbled for steering control. Something those solids weren’t capable of. Yes. So much power. The Saturn 5 was much slower getting off the pad. Felt like watching a slow motion movie. If anybody hasn’t watched Apollo 13 with Tom Hanks please do so immediately. You won’t regret it.
Oops. Sorry @Old_Joe. This rambling probably belongs in off-topic. Thanks for alerting us to the Starliner launch. Hope it works out well.

If I had Warren's expertise, portfolio and a position that was 50% of my portfolio I would do the same. I am so, so far away from that scenario I can only dream.

Warren Buffett started selling some of Berkshire's AAPL shares, and is putting the proceeds back into T-bills. Likes the >5% yield, and he can't find any good value in the current market.
He may be old and conservative, but he ain't dumb.

@msf, intrigued by the WayBack (Time) Machine, I explored it some today. It's a fantastic tool for researching the web history.
@hank noted in January that there weren’t many archives of MFO. But when one of the members visits the WayBack Machine, he/she can also archive with “Save Page Now” on that day.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/61882/way-back-machine-mfo-pages-from-11-22-2-23-6-23/p1
For example, I archived MFO TODAY, 5/6/24, at WayBack Machine,
https://web.archive.org/web/20240506205524/https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/

Until the FDIC stops protecting uninsured depositors, this change is largely form without substance.
A few sentences from a NYTimes subscriber-only opinion piece (May 1, 2024)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/opinion/fdic-insurance-banks.html

When Banks Fail, Why Do We Keep Bailing Out Uninsured Depositors?
[Michael] Ohlrogge, an associate professor at New York University Law School, argues that when banks fail, the F.D.I.C. is not resolving them in the manner that is least costly to its Deposit Insurance Fund.
...
It stands to reason that the cheapest way to resolve a bank failure in many cases — maybe most cases — would be to tell those uninsured depositors that their money is gone: “Sorry. See ya, Wouldn’t wanna be ya.”
But in a vast majority of bank failures, the F.D.I.C. approves a resolution in which the uninsured depositors don’t lose a penny [at typically higher cost].
...
Ohlrogge speculates that the F.D.I.C. is experiencing “mission creep,” taking on a responsibility for uninsured depositors that it was never assigned.

This is a copywrited, paywalled piece. I'm not going to reproduce more here. Ohlrogge's paper, Why Have Uninsured Depositors Become De Facto Insured? (Nov 15, 2023) is freely available and covers the material in more detail.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4624095

@sma3 - I do not use YOC. I believe it to be a false metric. It's not the yield on the current valuation. However if you'd like to know what it is, it's 9.6% to go along with 59% CG's.
Edit to add: I should probably mention that the stocks I mentioned earlier are not the only ones I use/own which makes 5.8% possibly suspect. Others in that bucket include BDC's, MReit's, and equity income CEF's. I tend to rotate those (in, out or swap) based upon market conditions.
@Old_Joe - thanks but it was a lot of luck mostly. The picks could have tanked and cut their dividends anywhere along the way and still could. A recent case in point is LEG, a dividend aristocrat of merit who just hit a 52-wk low and cut their dividend by 89%. I owned it at one time but I don't remember why I sold it or traded it for some other investment.
There was a guy at M*, Josh Peters, back around 2007-9 who had a monthly dividend investor column. I learned a lot from him. He left for some fund company to run a mutual fund based on his acumen and possibly his popularity. I've no idea how that turned out.

You can't buy life insurance for some random person off the street - that invites fraud and homicide. Rather, there must be some economic interest you are insuring. Studios may insure their actors because the studios have money on the line. The most obvious candidate for life insurance is a family wage earner. A family stands to suffer if a wage earner dies.
Similarly, insurance companies are not likely to sell you liability insurance for more than you have at risk. I have a vague recollection of asking an insurance company out of curiosity about umbrella policies over $5M, since that seems to be the limit for "no questions asked" policies.

@Mark
Is that 5.8% of your current account value, or your cost basis? Isn't it hard to generate a yield that high without a lot of MLPs and REITS and /or BDCs etc?